Canucks at Death's door
By GEORGE JOHNSON -- Calgary Sun
They've seemed blissfully content to channel surf until the screen goes black on April 12.
"There's still a mathematical chance," argued goaltender Corey Hirsch last week, managing to stifle a chuckle (or a yawn).
And, almost unbelievably, there may be, however slim, with a win today at the 'Dome ...
The hired help insinuate, privately, they've lost respect for the man in charge. The man in charge said, publicly, 20% of the hired help had given up on making the playoffs.
Vancouver Canucks are just 7-16-3 since a 3-0 loss at the Saddledome on Feb. 1. They've won but three games in March, two at the expense of mighty Tampa Bay. They haven't been able to string together back-to-back victories for nearly two months, since Jan. 27 and 28.
Pavel Bure is out indefinitely. A grimacing Trevor Linden will try to play despite damaged rib cartilage. Alexander Mogilny's interest level fluctuates shift-to-shift -- alas, his paycheque remains maddingly consistent.
Yes, those confounding Canucks are at it again, on the verge of letting everyone down.
It's been seven years since Vancouver last missed the NHL's playoff party. Following a stirring run to the Stanley Cup final, the past three seasons have shown a gradual erosion -- from a .500 record and a trip to the second round to three games below break-even and a cursory round to ... well, to this.
The common denominator is the core group of the Canucks.
First-year coach Tom Renney, whose youth and international success had promised a brave new world just five months ago, is now coming under fire.
Does he feel a lack of respect from his underlings?
"I don't detect it," replied Renney recently. "There's always eye contact when I talk to them."
And, invariably, lip service when he departs.
With discretion, the players complain the Renney regime is too new school -- there are too many meetings, too much information, too complex a system.
This is basically the same bunch that whined about the departed Rick Ley being too dour, too old-school, unable to communicate.
Before he left, Ley complained that the players cared too much about themselves and not enough about each other.
"I'd have to think it runs a little deeper than Tom Renney," suggests Todd Hlushko of the Flames, who spent a memorable Olympics playing for Renney.
"Tom's one of the best technical coaches I've ever played for, and he's a terrific communicator."
But the mindset between your average box-lunch, practice-'til-he-drops national team hopeful and your high-falutin', high-on-the-hog NHLer is a different as oil and water.
It's a culture shock to the system.
"With the national team, he inherited a bunch of no-name guys nobody else wanted," says Hlushko. "Guys who knew this was likely their last chance, who knew there were 50, 60, 70 players out there who would love to take their place at the drop of a hat. Guys hungry to play.
"Tom's adaptable, but he wants things done his way.
"In the NHL, he's trying to deal with 12- or 13-year pros and $6- million players who are pretty set in their ways."
With the national team, the coach has licence to wield almost dictatorial power. In today's NHL, players are in control. If they quit on a coach en masse, it's his severed head that winds up in the guillotine basket.
Still, it's difficult to believe that after gassing Ley last season, Renney, with two years and $600,000 Cdn. left on his contract, would be in jeopardy.
How many coaches will this team have to go through?
So what about GM Pat Quinn, pulling down a tidy $1.2 million per season?
Surely those nice folks from consumer-friendly Orca Bay are going to look for someone to pin with the blame.
During Quinn's tenure, the Canucks have finished above .500 only three times. On all three occasions, he held the dual role of coach/GM.
A better coach than manager? More and more people are beginning to think so.
He's inexplicably traded for three injured players -- Mike Ridley, Esa Tikkanen and Sergei Nemchinov. While Rome burned this season, he fiddled, making only one deal -- acquiring the estimable Donald Brashear -- between the '96 trade deadline and the Russ Courtnall-Tikkanen swap with the Rangers earlier this month.
Certainly, injuries have crippled the club, but that problem is far from exclusive. Clearly, this mix of players isn't right.
This fall, after a marginally longer summer than usual, they'll be off to Tokyo for exhibition games against the Mighty Ducks.
Makes sense.
They already seem well-schooled in the art of hari-kari.
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